


Good Morning Stranger

by digitalsoop



Category: Free!
Genre: F/M, Post Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-12
Updated: 2015-03-12
Packaged: 2018-03-17 11:51:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3528380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/digitalsoop/pseuds/digitalsoop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Makoto has slowly been getting used to city life since going to college in Tokyo. Train etiquette is still something he has a hard time grasping, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good Morning Stranger

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the second annual MakoGou Secret Santa that I host on Tumblr, and I am only now getting around to posting it here. Well, have a very merry, very late Christmas.

Makoto yawned loudly, clapping a gloved hand over his mouth too late for it to matter. He shouldn’t have started packing so late at night. Around him others began yawning; small sighs, muffled groans, loud stretching yawns that had to be covered with both hands; with the train filling up with college students who felt the same or worse than he did, there wasn’t much concern about small manners. They bumped shoulders and shuffled around the train looking for a place to settle, muttering apologies that were slurred by exhaustion and hangovers.

Though he was usually happy to stand and give up available seats to someone else, this morning Makoto was quick to slump down into the first open space he found near the end of a bench, leaving space between him and someone that had disappeared inside of their winter coat for a nap. If he hadn’t noticed their small furred boots and bright white mittens gripping a backpack to their chest, he would have assumed someone had forgotten their laundry on the train. Surely stranger things had been left behind on a Tokyo train. Manners meant less when you were drunk, after all.

It wouldn’t be a long train ride for him. Just a few stops until he made his way to the Shinkansen station, where the ride really began, all the way from Tokyo to Hiroshima. Then he would nearly be home, just in time to surprise his family with his early return. He swayed to the side, a gentle nudge from the train leaving the station. Shoes scuffled, curses were mumbled, and then the train was filled with the sound of sighs and yawns again. The bundled up napper slumped sideways, pressing their knees together as their feet spread further apart.

What stop were they headed to? How long had they been riding the train?

The view of the window was blocked by people gripping the hand holds and nodding their heads. The speakers didn’t crackle with the gentle announcement to prepare for the upcoming stop, but they would eventually. It wasn’t his problem if someone slept through their stop, a classmate had told him. People slept on trains all the time. If he was going to try and wake up everyone to make sure they got off at the right time, he’d never finish. Besides, he could end up getting punched.

“You’re not in the country anymore. It’s not how the city works.”

He pursed his lips. He checked his phone. Haruka would still be in bed this early in the morning, especially since he only had swim practice today. The short sigh didn’t do much to relieve the sudden twist of his chest. Even after a year Haruka swimming alone, without him, was bizarre. At least he could count on him actually making use of his cellphone, now. It had only taken him all of their freshman year of college to finally get used to it.

“Sorry, can I sit here?”

“Ah—sorry—um?” Makoto rubbed his phone against the side of his jacket, missing the pocket twice before finally shoving his phone inside. A man with messy hair and dark circles under his eyes pointed to his left, where he had set his backpack. There was barely enough space for a child, let alone a grown man. But, to his right was the space between him and the slumped sleeper. He chewed his lip, pulled his backpack into his lap, and scooted over. “Yeah, sure.”

The person hiding in the coat didn’t notice him inching closer, and the man didn’t thank him before putting on his headphones and tilting his head back.

Well, that was how the city worked.

The distance between stops was small, though the walking distance between them was considerable. Once on the train, it seemed that every five minutes there was a constant sway from slowing down and speeding up. The motion wasn’t pleasant after too many drinks, or in the middle of a nap. Plenty of times he had woken with a start only to realize he was still three stops away. It was amazing that his mysterious companion barely twitched. They moved with the train like seaweed following the waves which, though it had been amusing at first, had put Makoto into quite a predicament.

The next stop sent them sliding towards him again; there was no room for him to stand, and even if he was rude and took up the personal space of the woman now sitting to his left, a stranger would still end up sleeping in his lap. He would rather break the rules of the city than suffer that embarrassment, and put a hand on their shoulder.

“Sorry, excuse me.” The coat beneath his hand was soft and fluffy, too fluffy for a cautious touch to go noticed. A small grunt came from under the hood. They must have heard him. Makoto held his breath, clenching his hands; a rustle of material against the seat, a wide eyed glance for one last escape route, and there was a stranger using his arm as a pillow. “E-excuse me, please wake up. Hey—“

The woman on his left turned her head and squinted. “It’s early in the morning. Please try to be quiet.”

He cleared his throat and pulled his hand away. “I’ll miss my stop,” he muttered. The coat smelled of fresh laundry and perfume, a sweet flower that made him think of summer. There were worse people that could be sleeping on him, really. “The next stop is coming up. You’ll miss it.”

The backpack pressed against their chest started chiming. Their shoulders tensed, their feet stomped onto the floor, and they swung forward before slamming back against the seat. The woman on his left muttered under his breath about how ridiculous public transportation was, but the soft fluffy coat was visibly shaking. Makoto leaned back, pulling his backpack closer. “Are you okay?”

“Ma—um,” a light voice muffled by sleep and their coat. A mitten reached up and tugged the coat down, pulling the hood back to where it belonged and revealing a nose and bright red hair. “Makoto-senpai?”

Her hair clung to her face and the fur edging her hood, which she pushed back so she could stare up at him properly. “Makoto-senpai!”

“G—ou? Gou-chan?”

Her mouth hung open, but Makoto’s mouth snapped shut. Rin hadn’t mentioned this. No one had mentioned this. Had they really all graduated already? Nagisa had mentioned something about it in a mail he sent—maybe—it had been pushed from his mind by finals—maybe. “Gou.”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

“Are you going home?”

“Yeah. Are you?”

He nodded. “Do you want to go together?”

“Yeah.”

***

The wait for the Shinkansen was silent. The departure from the train had been silent as well; he had offered to carry her backpack through gestures that he wasn’t sure Gou had understood; she had only smiled and walked next to him. Without a swim meet ahead, there was nothing for a manager and captain to say to each other.

The time could be passed with simple, mundane questions, but that would only be admitting that he had completely lost touch with his old swim team, except for Haruka. Going to college meant he was busy, but how far could that excuse carry him?

“It’s been a long time, right? I just realized it now—sometimes I can’t believe I made it through my third year,” Gou sighed, tilting her head back. “I don’t think we ever stopped studying. Even during club meetings I would study. Oh!—did my brother tell you that we made it to nationals again? We didn’t place in the top ten but—well it was a good way to leave the club, though the team really needed a pep talk afterwards. Rei was such a good captain, you would have been really proud.

“And you placed really high in your class, right? Sousuke told me, since you had classes together. He really likes you, you know. He’s so hard to read sometimes, but it’s kind of the same with Rin, so I’m used to it—“

“Gou-chan.”

“Hm? Oh, wow, I haven’t stopped talking have I? I’m sorry.”

“No, I wanted to apologize,” he smiled, looking up at the ceiling. “It’s been two years, right? And I didn’t keep in touch with any of you. I think I even promised I would.”

“But when you placed so high in your class, we all totally understood!” Her hands balled into fists, made less intimidating by the mittens. “Nagisa was really proud of you when he realized how hard you had been working. Don’t feel bad, Makoto-senpai.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “You don’t have to call me that anymore, you know. It’s okay. I’ve been a pretty bad about being your senior anyway.”

“Makoto-kun.” She furrowed her brow. She hadn’t grown taller in the two years that had passed; her chin and nose still looked like Rin’s. Her eyes were still bright, easy to read, surely still quick to flash in anger. She was the same. But her voice was soothing, a croon, something she hadn’t been capable of when she had offered to be the manager of the swim club. “Please don’t feel that way. You were a good captain, and a good senior, and a great friend. I know I really admired you. So, you’re a bad texter! So is my brother, and so is Sousuke. That doesn’t change anything. You’re the same as I remember.”

“Sousuke is a pretty bad texter,” he muttered.

“The only one that’s worse is Rin!”

The train pulled into the station, and they laughed as they boarded and found their seats together. He hefted their bags up to be stowed away. Gou balled up her coat in her seat, wiggling back and forth until she had created a cozy crevice to settle into. “Sorry for sleeping on you before.”

“Huh? Well—I didn’t mind—I mean, I did until I realized it was you.” He settled into his seat and tried not to bump arms with her. “So if you want to sleep on me again, it’s really fine. Since—“

Gou smiled, and he did his best to smile back and ignore the white hot rush of embarrassment shooting up the back of his neck. 

“Since?”

“Since—uh, well, since you admired—no.” He waved his hands and closed his eyes. “I’m happy that you admired me, I’m not saying that it’s like I’m doing you a favor or that you still do, or anything like that. It just made me happy so I’m offering because—I’m happy.”

“Okay. Maybe after we’re done catching up we can take a nap,” she laughed. “Now that we go to same school again, I’m not gonna let you off the hook if you ignore me!”

“No way, I really want to spend time with you, so, so, let’s—catch up.” He slumped down in his seat and patted one of her mittens. “It’ll be nice to finally get to know you.”

“Yeah, I agree.”


End file.
